A Basic Guide to Writing Fanfiction
by Haiogh-Yai
Summary: A guide to common errors as taught by one OC for the general community and, more specifically, the (normally) lovely Harry Potter fandom.
1. Lesson Zero: Introduction

**Lesson Zero: The Introduction**

A figure walked out onto a dark stage, and stopped just behind a barely visible podium. There was silence for a moment before there was a hissed call for lights and there was a sudden surge of brightness from a spot light.

The light focused on a girl in her late teens standing behind the podium and next to a previously unnoticed blackboard. She was clutching a thick sheaf of paper and looked annoyed, standing as stiffly and as tall as her 5' 3'' frame would allow her to.

"Welcome, dear readers, to 'A Basic Guide to Writing Fanfiction'." She bit out, "We are meeting here to discuss common mistakes that are often in badfic and how to avoid them. I am doing this because frankly, the amount of badfic is positively disgusting."

She paused to write 'FANFICTION LESSONS' in large block writing on the blackboard before whipping back around, sending her long black hair flying.

"My name is Alice McCoy, you may call me Ms. Alice and I will be your teacher. Now I'm sure you are wondering exactly what will be covered in this course so let me enlighten you…" she trailed off as she tried to locate the class syllabus from amongst her papers.

Unfortunately this just caused the whole pile to fall to the ground with a muffled thump. Alice glared at the papers before muttering a string of swears before turning back to face the auditorium.

"Those don't matter. I can tell it from memory, what with this being the third attempt to hold this class," she said.

"Lesson One is Writing a Summary, Lesson Two is Story Lay-Out, followed by Lesson Three: Basic Story Information," Alice rattled off, "Lesson Four is Relationships, Five is Characters, and Lessons Six through Eight are Clichés. Lessons Nine and Ten will be on Mary Sues and our final lesson, Eleven, will be Basic Fanfiction Vocabulary."

Alice paused to listen for any signs of confusion before remembering practically no one was there, "Well anyway, in case it was not clear badfic is defined as a low quality story with incoherent story lines, bad grammar, bad characterization, and 'what the hell' moments. Badfic are what is wrong with fanfiction"

Alice cleared her throat before she looked quickly around the room, "Well I have said my part for tonight. So, any questions?"

"…"

"Huh," she muttered, "not even a cricket. Well until next time then. I bid you all good night."

After casting one last glance around the empty auditorium Alice snapped her fingers to signal the light to shut off and hurried off stage.

She left her papers lying on the stage in the darkness.

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**A/N: I can't just be happy with this, so time to try again. And yes I know it's not Harry Potter focused yet but it will eventually since I am most familiar with that fandom.**


	2. Lesson One: Writing the Summary

**Lesson One: Writing a Summary**

This time the room was much lighter and Alice was already standing at the podium. She looked far cheerful and had already written the day's topic on the board. She had forgone her stack of papers and instead held a small pile of index cards.

"Welcome class," she began, "Today is about writing a proper summary, including what to avoid doing and saying."

"Now a summary, according to the New Oxford American Dictionary, is a brief statement or account of the main points of something. Somehow this is something many writers tend to miss." Alice said while throwing the first index card into the air.

"Now the first thing to do is make sure your summary _actually_ summaries your story. So don't write an unrelated summary just to be funny or get views or for some other silly reason. Also don't make the summary a quote from your story, this might come as a shock but that does not actually summarize any information from your story." She flipped the next card away before adding, "I'm not clear on the confusion over this, to be honest."

"But I am here to help, not criticize. Okay, so both. Anyway, if you think you can't write a good summary just try to mention your protagonist, antagonist, and the main conflict. With that you at least have a decent start."

"Now if you also make sure to avoid horrible grammar, capitalization (you capitalize the start of every sentence and all proper nouns, class), and excessive punctuation (such as several exclamation points in a a row) you have a better and more professional looking summary than a sad number of others. Oh, and for the love of writing, don't WRITE THE DAMN THING IN CAPS LOCK. It's annoying to read and makes it seem as if you were meant to _shout_ the whole thing."

After taking a moment to catch her breath Alice continued on, "Having those elements in your summary just hinders comprehension and kills interest. They also are a sure sign of a badfic and so should be avoided at all costs."

"Any questions so far?" She asked.

"Of course not, I'm only doing this because I have no other choice. No one is here," she said while giving an evil glare upwards, "Damn writers."

"Anyway, onto the next part of the lesson; phrases to avoid putting in your summary. I'd say the number one don't use phrase is 'Not a Mary-Sue' because it honestly says 'This is a Mary-Sue'. If your character is not a Sue there is no need to say this, if there is a need to say this but you won't admit to it just fix your character. If you think your character is a Sue either fix whatever worries you or have more confidence in your writing. There is no real reason to include this."

"Next up, "Alice continued, "is 'First time writer, no flames/be gentle'. Now seeing as this _is_ the internet you should avoid throwing the metaphorical blood in the water. First time writers are not the best (typically) at actually writing and this will attract flamers. The reason for this, especially if this is your first time really writing anything, is that this is one of the worst things you will ever write."

Here Alice paused and paced across the stage. She wanted to word this correctly so she didn't scare anyone away while still getting her point across.

"That doesn't mean that your story is bad however, just that it will likely be your worst piece. In a few years after you've written more and gathered some experience you almost always look at your first piece with some sense of embarrassment. But you have to start somewhere, so it's okay."

"What is not okay," she said more sternly, "is using this as an excuse to write badly. Nothing is stopping you from trying to write well."

As she walked back to the podium she threw the rest of her index cards on the ground. One of the stupid things had given her a paper cut.

"We're almost done here. Next, don't say 'Don't Like, Don't Read'. This might come as a shock but no one wants to read something they think they won't be interested in. If adding this to your summary was prompted by someone saying that they didn't like your story they might have noticed a flaw that you didn't. No one looks for a fic they know they won't like and then leaves a review."

"Finally, something that it's polite to add into your summary is _warnings_. Warnings are typically for things people might want to avoid like most pairings, _incest_, slash, characters changing sides (light to dark), rape, AU's, OOCness, OC's, lemons, and any type of abuse."

"And with that you have a decent summary," Alice finished, "Join us next time for a lesson on Story Lay-Out."

Finally done, Alice erased the blackboard and snapped for the lights to go off. She walked offstage with only a quick backwards glance, she could have sworn that there had been someone in the seats.

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**A/N: For some Reason What Not To Do in Fanfiction is getting favorites and follows, if you like the idea please follow/favorite this story instead. I know the this really only applies to a few people, but the other story is coming down in a few days.**


	3. Lesson Two: Story Lay-Out

**Lesson Two: Story Lay-Out**

Unlike the previous two lessons the stage is fully set; the lights are on, the blackboard has the lesson title listed, and a single piece of paper rested on the podium. There were even a few people sitting in the red seats, but no Alice in sight.

Five minutes later she strolled in looking completely unbothered about her belated arrival. She strolled over to the podium while glaring at the purple band aid wrapped around her thumb. When she reached the podium she raised an eyebrow at the one paper that waited there, finally she looked up to begin the lesson.

"Okay class today-" she broke off in surprise. There were _people_ in the seats and she had been _late_.

"Well, it seems I owe you an apology. I shouldn't have kept you waiting, but I honestly wasn't expecting anyone," she said before continuing, "Today is Lesson Three: Story Lay-Out. This is not exactly about writing but is important none-the-less."

"The organization of your story can play a big role in how readable it and can be a deciding factor if the story is already in the grey area of worth-reading. In this lesson we will address Text Blocks, Empty Air, the Teeny-Tiny Chapter, and Author's Notes."

Alice picked up the paper, carefully avoiding the edges and walked around to the front of the podium so she could lean against it.

"Now Text Blocks are very simple, they're large blocks of text that are cumbersome to read and cause headaches. They can be either an entire chapter or just a part of it. Text needs spaces, and this doesn't just mean starting a new line. It means have white space in between sections, and in more extreme cases means remembering to _put spaces in between words_."

"Now to avoid Text Blocks," she said, "keep a few things in mind. First, seeing as this is fanfiction remember that people already know what the characters look like- unless you're talking about an OC. So for canon characters you only need about a sentence, it shouldn't take long to tell us that Harry Potter has messy black hair, green eyes, and a lightning bolt scar and for an OC you could fit their basic description in about a paragraph. Don't forget that another good way to describe a character is to not directly describe them to the reader but to slip in facts as you go."

After brushing her bangs out of her brown eyes Alice continued, "That goes for clothes too. If you have a big paragraph describing someone's outfit I can almost guarantee it will be skipped. This goes for most descriptions actually: large paragraphs about the scenery, a room, someone's appearance, clothes, an attack and its effects, or the history of something will be skimmed. There is no reason to barrage readers with these facts."

"Next we have the opposite problem, Empty Air. This is when instead of having a huge block of text you have too much white space. When you consistently have just an ellipses or 4-5 words per line you get Empty Air, just tons of white and a few words. No one wants to scroll for half a page and read maybe a full sentence.

Alice paused for a moment to see if anyone looked confused, "Is everyone with me so far? Yes? Excellent."

"Our next problem," she said, "is the Teeny-Tiny Chapter. This is more subjective as chapter length is mostly dictated by plot and pacing. However your chapter has to be long enough to allow for some plot to be present and give the story a decent flow. I'd say an absolute _minimum_ would be about 200 words not including any A/N's or titles. Just know that if it can take longer for a chapter to load than it will to read, it's probably too short."

"To avoid this you can try combining short chapters. You also shouldn't post a short chapter just because you feel obligated to update with something. You don't owe anyone anything so don't feel pressured, it's fine to go a bit without updating because you have writers block or your real life got in the way."

Alice walked back behind the podium to grab a bottle of water before continuing, "And now on to the final piece of today's lessons: Author's Notes, or A/N's. Now while this is often seen as another subjective area I believe that there are certain rules that should be followed. First, Author's Notes should be at the beginning and/or end of a chapter and should not be longer than or close to the length of the chapter itself. Second, don't interrupt the story with a note _(A/N: Like this!)_ because it's distracting and jarring. If you have places that really needs extra explanation number them (1) and then address them in an Author's Note at the bottom."

"Finally, there will be times when you will need an entire chapter to be an Author's Note. Maybe you are going on hiatus, abandoning the story, or rewriting it; this is okay. However, if you are going to post new chapters after the A/N chapter _please_ use the 'replace chapter' button to change the A/N or use the 'delete chapter' button to delete the Note and then upload a new chapter. Do not leave obsolete Author's Notes pages in the middle of your story."

"Thank you, that will be all for today."

Finally finished Alice waited for the few attendees to file out and then snapped for the lights to go off. She made sure she had her water bottle and walked off to the left of the stage. Just before the exit she paused and turned, that paper was still lying on the podium and not on the ground. It would be a shame to break the tradition.

Hesitating for only a moment, Alice ran back to the center of the stage and pushed the paper of to the podium. As soon as it fluttered to the ground she hurried off stage, vaguely hoping no one had seen her immature moment.

No one had, except for the guy still in the lighting booth.

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**A/N Now even though I just said this it has been a problem in the past so I'm restating it. It is fine to have a chapter be an Author's Note, just don't leave one in the middle of the actual story. I **_**know**_** I have had chapters that are just A/N's, however they are only at the end of anything I have ever posted. There is no need to contact me to say 'But you've had chapter's be A/N's before!".**


	4. Lesson Three: Basic Story Information

**Lesson Three: Basic Story Information**

Today Alice had made sure to arrive to the auditorium early. She had glanced over the attendance sheet and had been surprised to see that her class had 14 students and several more who would attend if possible. Three people had actually approached her outside of class to talk about the material, one person had actually asked about _today's_ lesson. She had to make sure everything was ready for when the students arrived.

She snapped for the lights to go on and walked to the black board to write the day's topic on the blackboard. Once she finished writing 'Basic Story Information' on the board Alice turned around to put her clip-board on the podium only to notice something. There was a piece of paper already sitting there and it was the one from the last lesson. The paper she had purposely pushed to the ground. As Alice stared at it suspiciously she noticed a note scribbled on the corner: ''Looks like you 'dropped' this.''

Narrowing her eyes Alice glanced up sharply as if there might be a clue as to the identity of the note writer, only to notice the first few students filing in. They appeared to be the same students that had spoken to her after the last lesson, demonbarber14, sapphire-eyed cat, and RebeccaRoy if she remembered correctly.

After a few more minutes it seemed no one else would arrive so Alice began the lesson, "Greetings class, today we will be going over correctly posting your story's information. Since this is something _you_ wrote, you have no excuse for getting any of this wrong."

"First is your title. In short, it should relate to your story and must have proper capitalization. If you cannot come up with a title at all, pretend you had to summarize your story in four words or less. To be frank, most titles end up being just fine and can be changed if your first one really bothers you. If you do not know how to properly capitalize your title then know the first word is always capitalized and any word after that that is not an article is also capitalized. An article is a word used before a noun such as 'a', 'the', and 'of'; 'and' also does not get capitalized."

"Next," Alice continued after putting her clipboard down, "is the summary. While I covered this in Lesson Two, some of it bears repeating. A summary should _summarize_ your story so make sure to sum up at least a _few_ of the main points. This means that your summary, and I cannot stress this enough, should relate to your story and not give false information on your story. The summary should also contain warnings unless you have too many, in which case put them in an A/N."

"Your genre must also always match your story. Fanfiction offers 21 different genres and you can pick two per story, that leaves you with a total number of combinations somewhere in the hundreds. There is no way that there is not a single possibility that will properly represent your story, so simply chose the one or two that best fit. This is one of the simpler sections along with rating. Considering there are only four ratings," she said, "K, K+, T, and M, and fanfiction provides guidelines there should not be much confusion. Just- just make good choices."

"Now," Alice said, "We come to warnings, which will be the largest section of this lesson despite being mentioned in the Summary Lesson. The things you should leave a warning for, either in the summary or in an authors note at the start of the first chapter or the chapter where the given thing appears, are things some people might want to avoid, things people might be looking for, things that could trigger someone, and relationships. You know all these things and should label them as needed with little trouble."

"Things someone might want to avoid can be summed up as a common trope, something squicky, or bashing. Examples of common tropes are Wrong Boy Who Lived (WBWL), any OOCness and Betrayed!Harry. Examples of squick (things people might find gross and off putting) are incest and relationships with disturbing age differences. That is anywhere that a person in a pairing is younger than legal and the other is an adult. Bashing is exactly that- when you insult and bash a character and people who favor said character will not want to read your piece"

"You should warn for things people might be looking for in your summary. This way if a term is searched your story will pop up as a result, as such everything here is basically a trope. Examples are Wrong Boy Who Lived, Betrayed!Harry, OppositeGender!Anyone, Super!Character, and so on."

Seeing that the part on triggers was next, Alice frowned slightly and made sure everyone in the room was paying attention. This part may be brief, but it was probably the most important.

"A trigger, or trauma trigger, is material that could cause a serious reminder of a traumatic event. The more graphically you will be dealing with a triggering subject, the more important it is that you place a warning. Since triggers deal with traumatic memories they deal with serious subjects. For example, you should place a warning if you story has child abuse, rape, sexual assault, spousal abuse, or any abusive relationship. There are people who have dealt with those things and might prefer to avoid it at all costs."

"Finally," Alice said, "relationships. Make sure you put the right characters together when asked to pick. There are OTPs, which could get you views from other people who like that pairing, and NoTPs, the pairings that some people won't approach with a fifty foot pole. It's horrible to go into a story looking for a pairing only to get a completely different one or no pairing at all. It's equally as bad to go in expecting no pairing or one you don't mind only to be smacked in the face with a pairing that makes you feel sick. Just label what the pairing is if there is one, fandoms even have helpful shipping names to make this as easy as possible. And with that, we are done. I shall see you all next time."

As the students filed out Alice stood next to the podium and fiddled with her clipboard. As soon as the room was empty Alice carefully double checked that no one was in the room before taking the papers off the clipboard and split them into to piles: papers from today's class and papers that were still important. The still important papers went back onto the clipboard along with the sheet from last week while the rest were dropped on the ground. Lets see if the note-writer would strike again.

Alice picked up her clipboard and walked off stage, snapping for the lights to go off as she went. It would not be until later, as she sat eating dinner and wondering who the note writer could be that she came up with a suspect.

The lighting booth guy.

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**A/N: First, I'm sorry that this update took so much longer. The first three parts went up faster than normal for me and now I am in the home stretch of college applications. Needless to say, my free time has been limited.**

**Second, a shout out toThunder Krystal, FoostepsInTheSand02, Schurmann, shadowkat678, G. Novella, PotterAllTheWay64, and belleoftoronto. These are the people who submitted idea on the original and I thought they still deserved some recognition.**


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